S6 Bonus 02: Expanding Your Writing Practice with travel editor Jen Roberts

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[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:28.3] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I’m your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder, and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we’ve always wanted to tell with the right support, encouragement, and structure. 

I’m on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space. If you’re ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence, and publish your travel stories, you’re in the right place. Let’s go.

[0:00:38.4] YD: Welcome back, everyone. We are taking a quick break this September here at the Travel Media Lab Podcast and we will be returning with fresh, season seven episodes for you in October. Until then, I’d like to share with you a few conversations that we regularly have in The Circle, our membership in which we help you get your stories published with ongoing support, encouragement, opportunities, and a community as you establish yourself in the travel media space.

In this bonus episode, I’m sharing with you a conversation we recently had in The Circle. At the beginning of each month, we set a theme and in August, our theme was “Expanding Your Writing Practice.” I invited a travel writer and editor and dear friend, Jen Roberts to come in and talk to us about how she started in this career path and why we should expand the list of publications that we’re considering working with.

In today’s episode, I share with you part of that conversation and in the rest of it, we also discuss how to pitch a monthly, regular column that you are a contributor to for a publication. This whole workshop and all of our conversations and workshops and all of the things that we do inside The Circle, in addition to the support and the community that we offer are available to you when you join us over at travelmedialab.com/circle.

And before we get started, I want to share with you a super exciting announcement. This October, we’re inviting travel writer, Jessica Poitevien, to run a series of travel writing workshops inside The Circle. We’re calling the series, “The Anatomy of a Travel Story” and in it, Jessica’s going to take you thought the whole process, from generating ideas and pitching to interviewing and gathering your sources to developing your story structure and writing your article.

Jessica has written for Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic, Fodor’s Travel and many more and I’m so, so excited to learn from her this October. Now, let me tell you a little bit more about how the workshops will look like. We’ll have a total of three one-hour workshops on Monday, October 3rd, October 17th, and October 24th. 

The workshops are free for our Circle members and if you join us at our Imagine Level, which is just $27 a month, you’ll be able to get the audio recording of all the workshops. Now, if you want to attend the live call, if you want to interact with Jessica, if you want to ask her a question, then you can join us at our Rise or Soar levels, and at those two levels, you will have a live access to the workshops and opportunity to get your pitch critiqued by Jessica.

Again, the first workshop will run on Monday October 3rd. So if you join any time before that, you’ll be able to learn alongside Jessica and get her amazing expertise and experience. Get more information about this at travelmedialab.com/circle and I hope to see you inside. All right, now, let’s get into this episode.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:03:55.9] YD: All right. Well, welcome everyone to our monthly workshop that we do at the beginning of the month in The Circle and I am so happy to see so many amazing members of ours joining and by the way, welcome, Katie. Katie is our new member, she just joined recently. So welcome Katie, it’s so wonderful to have you join us, and look forward to getting to know you on our next call, which is our sort of pitch brainstorm call that we have in a few weeks.

And of course, hi, Jolie and Barbie, Katie, Cat, Susan, Hanna, so good to see everyone. So today we have Jen Roberts with us, who is an incredible friend but also an amazing travel writer and Jen and I recently reconnected because we sort of, we knew each other several years ago when we were both in Saint Louis and, at that time, neither of us was a travel writer but we connected because of our love of storytelling, of traveling, and we, in fact, met at a Susan Gilbert’s talk. She was giving a talk.

[0:05:05.7] JR: Liz Gilbert, yeah.

[0:05:06.8] YD: Oh my gosh, Liz Gilbert, what? Of course, Liz Gilbert.

[0:05:10.5] JR: How cliché that’s how we met.

[0:05:13.2] YD: I know, it defined our relationship, right? And then, we sort of, you know, I left Saint Louis and after some time, Jen left Saint Louis too and you know, we were keeping inside but we recently reconnected in Chicago and Jen since has become a travel writer and I have since become a travel writer and photographer as well and so when we reconnected and had a conversation, I just immediately thought, she needs to come and talk to you, friends because not only she’s an accomplished writer but she was giving me so many fresh ideas that even I start thinking differently about the way I should be approaching my writing practice. 

So I felt like we need to have Jen come and talk to our members and share her secrets with us and also, give you guys an opportunity to ask her a question about her wonderful experience of being in this career path. So without further ado, Jen, it’s so amazing to have you. Thank you so much for your time coming today and speaking.

[0:06:14.4] JR: Yeah, thanks for having me. So do you want me to just begin on how I started writing?

[0:06:19.9] YD: Yeah, let’s get into this, yeah. 

[0:06:22.6] JR: Okay. So I never ever set out to be a travel writer, I will start with that. So fresh out of grad school, I have a bachelor’s and a masters in literature, and my first job out of college was at a university of pharmacy school of all places and I was interviewed by a woman who was going to write like a staff newsletter and I didn’t know the woman from anyone. It turns out, she’s like the most prolific writer in Saint Louis and has won like national awards at this point in New York for her writing because she’s amazing.

But she interviewed me for a staff newsletter and when she learned I had a masters in literature, she said, “Why don’t you write?” I said, “I don’t know, I’ve never thought to write.” She’s like, “You should write.” I’m like, “Okay, why not?” So she started me with like a newsletter and then, I mean, I learned to write from her. I was really, really fortunate that she edited my work and she edited it in a really tough way, and then she kind of moved me to the Alumni Magazine, and then she left the university because she shouldn’t have been there in the first place doing the role that she was in because she’s too great of a writer.

Then she became the editor of St. Louis Magazine, took me with her and I had a column there and then she didn’t like that because she just likes to write and she sat down and so I wrote for her. I wrote for the magazine for a couple of years, way back in like 2003/2004. Then, I pursued a Ph.D. so I completely had – I mean, I had to stop writing because I had a big, big project called a dissertation that I had to do but I’ve always loved to travel. Like, travel is the piece here for me. I love being in other cultures and exploring and learning and like, really deep diving in and so I say that I never set out to be a travel writer but everything I’ve done in my career has been so I can travel. 

So when I worked on my PHD, I am like, “Well, I’m going to study comparative education because then they have to give me money to go travel.” So I spent time in India, I studied girls’ education and I did it in rural villages of India where there’s no electricity. I did it in the slums of Mumbai. I spent time in Cambodia. I was really drawn to Asia at this point. Now, it’s Latin America, that’s another story but – so all of my work, everything I did as an academic, I traveled for. I traveled for conferences, I traveled and ultimately, you know, you think you know what your dream job is and I got into academia and I just realized, I didn’t love it.

I loved the rich storytelling that came from doing qualitative research because qualitative research is where, you know, I would go into communities and you spend an extended period of time and you’re taught to observe and pay attention to details and pay attention to artifacts that exist, right? You can learn a lot about a context of a place by looking at meeting notes or things that are on bulletin boards or you know, you just really pay attention to your environment and everything you have access to, and then interviewing is a huge piece of that work. So I didn’t realize that at the time but it was really laying a brilliant foundation for when I decided to leave and just pursue writing full-time. 

So for me, I’ve always been a single parent and I have two kids. So when I decided that I wanted to leave academia, it wasn’t with the goal to be a travel writer, it was the goal to obtain enough work so I could quit my job and still support my kids and travel. I wanted to be remote and so for me, the person I knew to reach out to was the woman who started me writing years ago and so I just, it was in 2016, this is how quick like a network can work, 2016, I sent Jeanette. Her name is Jeanette Cooperman, you can look her up. She’s amazing. She’s an SAS now but I sent her a message and I said, “Hey, I would like to start writing again. How might I do that?” 

I just wanted her advice and she’s like, “Oh, okay” and she just, because she is who she is, she sent an email and within 30 minutes, I had a weekly column. You know, that’s luck but you know, it was a weekly column and it was a family column and I didn’t want to write family pieces and the articles paid $35 but I wrote those family articles. I wrote every single week for my $35 and then it just kind of…

[0:10:52.5] YD: So wait, you got this monthly or weekly column at the magazine and I think it’s important to talk about, how, really, how important it is to know people in the industry, right? I always talk about that too. That we, you know, knowing people always the most sure way of getting assignments and getting work.

But what I want you to talk through a little bit more because I think that would be relevant to our members is also, like going full-time as a writer, that’s like, that’s a challenge. That’s challenging.

[0:11:21.8] JR: It was scary.

[0:11:22.6] YD: That’s scary and challenging. So how did you manage that? Was it that you relied on that month, on that weekly column or how did you approach it?

[0:11:32.4] JR: Well, that grew obviously. So you know, I started with a column, I did that. Well, I did that for a while until I had enough work from the magazine. It’s just that a process of trading off for me, right? So I started with this family weekly column with no enjoyment if I’m honest just I was doing it to do it, you know? 

Occasionally, I can put my own spin on it. Like, I remember, I wrote an article on like, “How to introduce your kids to other cultures in Saint Louis” and you know, I was always trying to find me within that family column and art and social issues and so I was always trying to find ways and travel and other cultures and immigration and refugee issues in the States, that’s always where I have found myself. 

So it would all relate to travel but I never said I want to write travel stories but slowly, the magazine, because I developed such a great relationship with them, they kind of figured me out and so, just, it was just this process, right? Like, I was just doing online and then they moved me to store, you know, stories for print, and obviously, those pay a lot more and then they started giving me editing work.

So yeah, it has been a good place for me. It still is and they just send things my way most of the time but I have such a relationship with them now. So I guess don’t cancel out your regional magazines because they can give you a lot of work and it’s consistent. I know I always have a big paycheck from the magazine every single month. 

I guess I am kind of the freelancer that’s almost like part of the staff at this point like that’s how well situated I am there to where it’s provided me opportunities like I was the only freelancer they paid to attend a conference recently. It was all the full-time staff and me. They do a biannual magazine and out of nowhere, the editor wrote to me, he goes, “Hey, do you want to edit the magazine?” I’m like, “Edit the whole magazine?” He’s like, “Yeah, we want you to be the editor of this” I was like, “Yeah, that seems fun” you know? 

So it’s provided me a lot of like interesting experiences that I wouldn’t have had in other ways and the most recent is they used to not run trouble content but the magazine is really testing out newsletters and so they’re trying to, you know, they have a newsletter for everything now. 

Of course, they started a travel newsletter and they had an in-staff person, an in-house person doing it and as soon as she resigned I like just jumped on it and I messaged the main editor and I said, “I want the travel newsletter.” He’s like, “Yeah, of course, you should have the travel newsletter.” So that’s given me a really interesting opportunity. They wanted to be regional specific, which is not my area because I don’t ever travel regionally. But it’s still been a really good opportunity to learn more about the Midwest, which embarrassingly like I have spent my whole life there and I don’t travel there. I didn’t know much about it. So it’s been a really good experience and I guess I’ll just, a side note, if any of you ever want to write articles I am the editor, so I need better writers honestly. 

[0:14:39.0] YD: A couple of things I want to point out here that you said Jen that I think are important and again, that’s why I love bringing you on and talking to you because honestly, I’ve never myself considered regional outlets, regional pubs, regional newsletter. You know, I’m so set my eyes on the big like national publications but if you are looking for a consistent let’s say relationship, that relationship maybe easier. 

It may be easier to develop with a regional pub, you know? In your region, in your city, in your town where you have expertise where you are local even, right? It doesn’t even necessarily has to be about troubling parts to start that kind of relationship. 

[0:15:18.2] JR: Yeah and I guess because I am the editor now, that’s afforded me things. I mean, I left the country too. I felt the US last summer, so I am not in the country often but it afforded me when I was back this summer, I had free stays all over. I exploited that so much, I had so much fun just like going to the, you know, I went to Indianapolis, Nashville, Chicago and so it was just a really good opportunity and an unexpected one. 

[0:15:46.6] YD: How long would you say it took you to develop that relationship with that magazine and to get to a point where you are now where you are getting assignments, you are editing, they are biannual issue? Like it seems like it’s a great relationship that you guys are having, so how long would you say it has taken you? 

[0:16:04.6] JR: I mean, I started getting – I started writing for print very quickly like almost immediately. You know, they started assigning me things but 2016 I started writing. I would say probably like 2019 like I was really situated in the magazine but then I guess don’t overlook regional. It is not that I have my heart set on continuing to write regional. I honestly want to shift but I have so much work right now that’s paying my bills that it has been a slow shift. 

I am starting to drop off things and say no, so that I can pursue other things but I mean for me, it’s about money too and I have to write where the money is for me but what St. Louis Magazine has afforded me as I started writing for some of the art institutions in St. Louis, I started – I write for the St. Louis Symphony, which is like my favorite cultural institution in the city. Yeah, they reached out to me because they liked my work in the magazine. I’m a playbill writer now for the symphony. I just got off the call with like one of the top violinists in the symphony like I love that. 

So there are ways to write about travel, right? It’s helped me see St. Louis in a different way and it honestly felt unfortunate when I left because I was really starting to be engrained in the community and I was being – you know, I was invited to gala events and conferences and art gallery openings and it was starting to be really fun and then I left, yeah. 

[0:17:35.4] YD: No, that’s great Jen and I think that’s a really good example of how we just never know where opportunities can arise because again, I would have never thought even that writing for an art institution or a symphony is a possibility to expand your income stream, you know, which is really a good thing. 

Talk to us a little bit about how you view exactly that expanding your practice because what we even talked about when you and I met in Chicago is that, you know, you don’t necessarily pitch and work with just travel publications, right? You had an article in a coffee magazine. You had an article in another magazine that is not related to travel but you wrote a piece that was travel related. So how do you like walk us through that because again I, sorry, I just want to say that I’m acknowledging my own biases here because I am so focused on travel publications but you have actually even opened my eyes to like there’s this huge potential of outlets and magazines we could be approaching with travel stories that are not travel publications specifically and that to me is just like a gold mine to be honest that we need to be looking at. 

[0:18:46.6] JR: So you know, when I was in Mexico City, which is kind of where I’m based if I am based anywhere, I spend the most time there right now. I am trying to find a home right now but I am really interested in coffee and coffee production and so I found this coffee company that’s doing this really incredible work and I wrote to them and asked if I could interview them and write about them and you know, they agreed. 

So I did this story, you know, that talks about the coffee shop but also talks about its connection with farmers in the field and how they really support the work being done in these coffee fingers throughout Mexico and it could have been a story for a travel publication. There are lots of coffee stories in travel publications but it didn’t even really dawned on me, I went for the coffee publication. I wanted to kind of like establish myself as a coffee writer and you know it wasn’t easy. I pitched it and he wrote back and he’s like, “Yeah, this is exactly what I want” and I’m like, “Oh, okay.” 

And similarly, you know, there’s an artist. I am always drawn to the social issues. If you look at my work, there is – I love social issues. I love equality and I love like connecting, I think stories have such a power to connect people. So there is an artist who now is a good friend of mine in Mexico City and he created these sculptures that he put along the migrant trail in Mexico and they’re coyotes, right? Symbolic of the coyotes that run migrants through Mexico and he stamped them with information that migrants would need for their journey through Mexico because he found that in his volunteer work that the migrants didn’t know all the resources that were available to them.

I just love the story so much and so I interviewed him and I wrote that and I pitched it to an art publication. So I think the beauty of travel is you can find what you love about it, right? If you love food or if you love art or if you love, for me, like the social and that human side of it, that’s what really drives me. Design and architecture, if you look at my travel articles there like architecture heavy because that really interests me. 

But I think the beauty of like whatever it is you love about travelling, there is a whole platform there of magazines. They exist! There’s dozens of travel magazines or magazines for coffee, you wouldn’t even think that. There are so many of them, the more I dig in there are so many magazines just focusing on coffee and art and art and social issues. 

[0:21:11.2] YD: So it sounds like you’re background in academia and research has served you well because what I am picking up here is that you have excellent resource skills because my next question would be like how do you find some of these publications? Is it really just a matter of you know, coffee publications in the US and then you go through a Google search like rabbit hole? Is that sort of how your process works? 

[0:21:11.2] JR: Yeah. Yeah, I Google, yep, Google search. Instagram, you can learn so much on Instagram like you can find everyone you need to find on Instagram. It’s amazing, isn’t it? But yeah, Google searches and then you know, you go to Instagram and you kind of look to see who other people are following in a very stalker kind of way and it kind of leads you where you need to go. 

Similarly, I am in Honduras because I am working on a book project on coffee now. I am actually pursuing a book and I found all my participants on Instagram. So it was going to some of these organizations that support women coffee farmers and I started going through all of the pictures and I found almost all of my – the people I am interviewing, the people I am meeting, the people I am spending time with on Instagram. 

[0:22:24.5] YD: That’s amazing and yeah, like I said, it’s so refreshing for me to see how expansive your view of potential stories, potential publications, you know, reaching out to people, how expansive that is and I think it is a great reminder for all of us because in the Circle, in this community, we are very like zeroed in on travel. We’re like travel-travel-travel all the time but I think it is a great reminder for us that there is so many intersects there, right? 

Travel intersects, like you said, travel intersects with so many other topics and we don’t need to be zeroed in on travel, just travel, just travel publications and I think for this month’s topic, for expanding your writing practice and this is for you more, Katie, because most of our members know this but the purpose of these monthly calls or like calls for the beginning of the month is that I want to set a theme in The Circle that we’re dedicating the month to. 

Then sometimes I give homework and you know sometimes, we want to sort of expand and continue that conversation and so for this month, I want to encourage all of us to look at, “Okay, I know my Condé Nast travelers of the world, right? I know my National Geographics of the world, I know all of these Lonely Planets of the world. What other publications can I find that are within that intersection of my curiosities, my passions, my interests, and travel that I can pitch to this month?”

So I know when we post this call recording in the group, I will outline that this homework, this challenge more specifically but I do want us to push ourselves, to look at, “Okay, what other publications can I pitch to this month that is not a travel publication?” because I think that’s just such an excellent way to start expanding your practice, which you know, you’ve done such a great job of. 

[END OF DISCUSSION]

[0:24:06.1] YD: Thanks again for listening to our bonus episode today. I hope you found the ideas we discussed here relevant and inspiring. If you are looking for support, opportunities, and community in the Travel Media space, consider joining us in The Circle, where we have conversations like the one you just heard on a regular basis, and don’t forget, this October we’re running a special series of workshops with travel writer, Jessica Poitevien, where she’ll teach generating ideas and pitching, gathering sources and interviewing and developing your story structure. If you’ve been thinking about joining The Circle, this is your cue. Don’t miss this awesome opportunity to learn from Jessica and improve your travel writing skills. Go to travelmedialab.com/circle to learn more.

Thanks again for listening and stay tuned for another bonus episode coming your way next week.

[END]